Luke 6:12-16 - Choosing Of The 12 Apostles

What is that message? Well, that message is pretty simple. Our sin separates us from God. The wages of sin is death; that's the price that has to be paid. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve sinned, and the way that God covers their nakedness is He slaughters an animal and covers them with a skin. In the Old Testament covenant, if I sinned, I had to bring my sacrifice to the priest; blood had to be shed to forgive my sin. The problem is, as soon as I leave, if I sin again, I got to bring something else to slaughter. God had a better plan. His plan was Jesus. Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life; He fulfilled the law, and when He was crucified, He was crucified on our behalf. His blood covered your sin and it covered my sin. The terminology in Aramaic is 'tetelestai'; it means the records are reconciled, the books are reconciled. There's nothing left on the account. That's what Jesus declared in Aramaic as He died on the cross: 'It is finished.' There's nothing left to be paid for.

I can't earn God's grace. I don't deserve God's grace. It's given freely. That's the message worth dying for. That's the message that these apostles took around the world. That's the message that our world today still needs to hear. I can't tell you how many times I visit with people and I ask them spiritual, eternal questions: 'What are you going to do when you stand before God?' 'Oh, I hope I've done enough good stuff to outweigh the bad stuff.' Yeah, well, that would be great if it worked that way. But it doesn't. 'The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.' So many people trying to earn God's favor by doing good things. Jesus did the complete work; there's nothing left to be earned, there's nothing left to be worked for. It is finished. That was the message that needed to be carried forward.

And so when you look at this group of men, at first, you would go, 'Why would you entrust them with this message?' But then, when you see the end result, where they took the gospel, the fact that you and I have this message today, is because they were faithful to what God gave them. They completed their assignment faithfully, and I come back to the question: What assignment have you been given? Where are you to be His ambassador today? Who is it that needs that life-changing message? My hope is that none of us would ever have to face beheadings or crucifixions or anything of that nature for the sake of the gospel. Are you willing to face a little rejection every now and then, a little ridicule, people at work who say, 'You know, stay away from him, he's a little religious'? We don't pay a very high price to be ambassadors today. The question is, are we faithful in being ambassadors? Part of where we find the courage to do that is we learn to pull away and spend time with God.

What's so miraculous about this group of men is, you know, when Jesus was arrested and put on trial, they fled. Then, once He had risen again, they got together in the upper room and they began to pray. They pulled away, began to pray. The Holy Spirit comes upon them, and they are different men from that point on. There's a change. There's a change in us when we get alone with God because He needs to send us out. He needs to speak into our lives so we can be the ambassadors He's called us to be. So this morning, that's what I want us to think about.